1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet supply/convey supporting device.
2. Description of the Related Art
When sheets are supplied to an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, and a facsimile, a carriage is used to convey the sheets from a sheet storing area to the image forming apparatus. However, currently, a user (an operator) has to supply the sheets by hand from the carriage to a cassette or a tray of the image forming apparatus.
The act of supplying sheets places a burden on the user because the user bends his/her knees or bows to supply the sheets to the cassette or the tray, so that it is a hard work for, particularly, women or elderly people. Furthermore, the larger and larger number of sheets is recently supplied to a high-speed image forming apparatus and the act of supplying the sheets increases in frequency. Consequently, the user has been more burdened with supplying sheets.
Therefore, various apparatuses and methods to reduce such a burden of supplying sheets to an image forming apparatus or a printing machine have been proposed.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-240996 discloses a roll-sheet-supply supporting device that includes a roll-sheet holding mechanism for holding a roll of sheet, an up-and-down mechanism for moving the roll-sheet holding mechanism up and down, and a conveying mechanism for conveying the roll-sheet holding mechanism and the up-and-down mechanism.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. S61-12538 discloses a sheet loading method. According to the method, a sheet loading plate is placed on crossbars attached to a carriage, a stack of sheets is placed on the sheet loading plate, the carriage is moved to a feeding unit of a printing machine, the sheet loading plate on which the sheets are stacked is lifted by an elevating bar of the printing machine, and the sheets are positioned to a predetermined position for sheets to be supplied.
However, the roll-sheet-supply supporting device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-240996 serves to assist supplying a roll of sheet and does not serve to supply sheets to a common image forming apparatus in which cut sheets, that is, a stack of sheets is used. The sheet loading method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. S61-12538 requires a dedicated configuration on a side of an image forming apparatus such as an elevating bar and cannot be supported by a general apparatus.